While vehicles have been developed to be progressively safer through decades of improved mechanical structures and materials traffic accidents still do occur. Whether it is by human error, external factors or material failure there is has been a need to take a more proactive approach to complement the passive safety arrangements. Developments in the electronics field have provided new smaller, precise and more cost efficient sensors, data processors and data communication means that allow systems that can actively detect and interpret a traffic situation. Accordingly, one system may provide the driver with a warning message to call the attention of the driver to the drifting out of lane, or a system may brake autonomously. However, current advanced driver assistance systems used in for instance auto braking and lane keeping aid functions are commonly scenario-specific. For example, an automatic brake function for intersection may use a completely different algorithm than an automatic brake function for freeway driving. This is inefficient from a data processing perspective in terms of the whole vehicle and from a development cost perspective. Furthermore, this counteracts development of new functionality as multiple algorithms have to be maintained and extended for the life time of a vehicle platform.
Hence, there exists a need for a method that may take a more holistic interpretation of a traffic environment and which provides input data to e.g. the different warning interfaces and/or the controlling systems for collision avoidance or collision mitigation in vehicles.
Furthermore, US2005/0192749 (Flann et al.) discloses a path planner and a method for determining a path for a vehicle comprises defining a starting point for the vehicle. A termination point is defined. An obstacle detector detects one or more obstacles in a work area between the starting point and the termination point. A boundary zone is defined about each corresponding obstacle. Candidate paths are identified between the starting point and the termination point. Each candidate path only intersects each boundary zone once for each corresponding obstacle. An economic cost is estimated for traversing each candidate path or a portion thereof between the starting point and the termination point. A preferential path is selected from the identified candidate paths based on the preferential path being associated with a lowest estimated economic cost.